Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying meanings, effects and cultural patterns of metadata standards, focusing on Dublin Core (DC), and explore the ways in which anticolonial metadata tools can be applied to exercise and promote Indigenous data sovereignty. Design/methodology/approach Applying an anticolonial approach, this paper examines the assumptions underpinning the stated roles of two of DC’s metadata elements, rights and creator. Based on that examination, the paper considers the limitations of DC for appropriately documenting Indigenous traditional knowledge (TK). Introduction of the TK labels and their implementation are put forward as an alternative method to such limitations in metadata standards. Findings The analysis of the rights and creator elements revealed that DC’s universality and supposed neutrality threaten the rightful attribution, specificity and dynamism of TK, undermining Indigenous data sovereignty. The paper advocates for alternative descriptive methods grounded within tribal sovereignty values while recognizing the difficulties of dealing with issues of interoperability by means of metadata standards given potentially innate tendencies to customization within communities. Originality/value This is the first paper to directly examine the implications of DC’s rights and creator elements for documenting TK. The paper identifies ethical practices and culturally appropriate tools that unsettle the universality claims of metadata standards. By introducing the TK labels, the paper contributes to the efforts of Indigenous communities to regain control and ownership of their cultural and intellectual property.

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Arguing that records and other forms of evidentiary documentation are increasingly being ‘weaponized’ against various communities and categories of people, this essay addresses diverse calls for the recognition of personal and community rights in records and recordkeeping. After reviewing some prominent examples and the growing literature on information rights, the essay introduces a framework for human rights in and to records and recordkeeping designed to support refugees. It then examines its potential applicability in restoring internationally acknowledged human rights to US Indigenous groups seeking federal sovereignty recognition. This approach suggests where there might be potential for convergence and highlights important areas of divergence between these two different rights discourses. In both cases the authors argue that affected individuals and communities might be empowered through different, and culturally appropriate, forms of educational outreach. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of preparing future archival and other information and computing professionals to navigate and respond to the complexities and potential incommensurabilities of the growing multiplicity of calls for rights in records.

Land Introductions I conducted most of the research for this dissertation in what is currently considered Los Angeles, California, the territory of the Tongva people, the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands) and in one of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians' ancestral villages, located in what is now known as the San Fernando Valley, California. Research was also conducted in Chumash ancestral territory, in what is now considered Santa Barbara, California and in the territory of the Kitanemuk/Tejon Tribe in what is now considered Kern County, California. I wrote this dissertation while living in Topanga --where the mountains meet the sea in the Tongva language --which is territory claimed by Tongva, Chumash and Fernandeño Tataviam groups. This means that I live on unceded land that was stolen from at least one of the very same tribes with which I work. As a non-Native student pursuing a doctoral degree in a land grant institution located on Indian land, I thank and pay my respects to the Ancestors, Elders, and Relatives/Relations of these Indigenous communities, past, present and emerging and recognize their continuing connection to land, water, and resources. Author positionalityOriginally from Chile, and as a social justice archivist and scholar, I have dedicated my work -both in and outside academia --to investigating how archives can be accessed, appropriated and used by Indigenous peoples as tools to support self-determination, cultural revitalization, language rights, and political sovereignty. Aware of my privilege as a non-Native, white-passing, Latinx woman and mother, living and studying on unceded Tongva, Chumash and Tataviam Land, my work has prioritized assisting efforts to return Land and resources to tribal communities, specifically through anticolonial archival praxis. My relationship with the xi Fernandeño Tataviam Tribe started in 2017. The Fernandeño Tataviam are non-federally recognized Tribe with ancestral villages located in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, eastern Simi and Antelope Valleys. The Tribe is petitioning for federal recognition through the U.S. Federal Acknowledgement Process (FAP) since the mid-nineties. In May of 2017, and as a student of the "Locating Records as Evidence for Human Rights" class taught by Professor Anne Gilliland, I interviewed Tribal President Rudy Ortega Jr. for the first time for my final term paper. At the end of our meeting, I manifested to him my interest in assisting the Tribe with their federal recognition petition. Mr. Ortega invited me to collaborate with the research team by reading the petition documents along with the thousands of records used and submitted by the Tribe as evidence in support of their claim, inviting me to think of new locations where to find additional evidence for their case, and exploring alternative ways of interpreting the records that have been considered insufficient evidence by the Office of Federal Acknowledgment, the entity within the Department of the Interior resp...